cedents of my own whereby I had set aside that law on two
different occasions and thus succeeded in convicting criminals to
whose crimes there were no witnesses but themselves. What have
you accomplished this day? Do you realize it? You have set adrift,
unadmonished, in this community, two men endowed with an awful and
mysterious gift, a hidden and grisly power for evil--a power by which
each in his turn may commit crime after crime of the most heinous
character, and no man be able to tell which is the guilty or which the
innocent party in any case of them all. Look to your homes--look to your
property--look to your lives--for you have need!

"Prisoners at the bar, stand up. Through suppression of evidence, a
jury of your--our--countrymen have been obliged to deliver a verdict
concerning your case which stinks to heaven with the rankness of its
injustice. By its terms you, the guilty one, go free with the innocent.
Depart in peace, and come no more! The costs devolve upon the outraged
plaintiff--another iniquity. The court stands dissolved."

Almost everybody crowded forward to overwhelm the twins and their
counsel with congratulations; but presently the two old aunties dug
the duplicates out and bore them away in triumph through the hurrahing
crowd, while lots of new friends carried Pudd'nhead Wilson off
tavern-ward to feast him and "wet down" his great and victorious entry
into the legal arena. To Wilson, so long familiar with neglect and
depreciation, this strange new incense of popularity and admiration
was as a fragrance blown from the fields of paradise. A happy man was
Wilson.

CHAPTER VI. THE AMAZING DUEL

A deputation came in the evening and conferred upon Wilson the
welcome honor of a nomination for mayor; for the village has just
been converted into a city by charter. Tom skulks out of
challenging the twins. Judge Driscoll thereupon challenges Angelo
(accused by Tom of doing the kicking); he declines, but Luigi
accepts in his place against Angelo's timid protest.

It was late Saturday night nearing eleven.

The judge and his second found the rest of the war party at the further
end of the vacant ground, near the haunted house. Pudd'nhead Wilson
advanced to meet them, and said anxiously:

"I must say a word in behalf of my principal's proxy, Count Luigi, to
whom you have kindly granted the privilege of fighting my principal's
battle for him. It is growing late, and